Dan Davis [Davis - Galactic Arena Box Set

The first time the UNOP operatives cut off Rama Seti'shead, it was for a good cause. Perhaps, the most important cause in humanhistory. The second time, three years later, it was in order to save his life.

The Tactical Surgeon knew that his target, Rama Seti, wasnot expecting to be beheaded in the middle of the night. The targets apartmentwas on the 37th floor of 6 Constitution Plaza, Delhi and Mr. Seti had the kindof security system that made high net worth individuals sleep soundly.

Entry to the building itself was controlled andpatrolled, funded by the residents monthly fees. Even so, from the personalityprofile in his file, the Tac Surgeon knew the target was not a man to trustother people to keep him safe.

The target had invested in an automated body scanner,fingerprint and retinal scans combined with a password combination lock with atimer that didnt allow the door to be opened outside of 1400 to 1700, when thetarget took his deliveries. The apartment door was high carbon steel reinforcedwith six locking rods that bolted through the door and into the frame.

Yet the best civilian security on Earth would not stop UnitedNations Orb Project (UNOP) Tactical/Surgical Team 8 from breaking through.

It was 0300, local time. Suitable bribes had turned theheads and cameras of building security and the UNOP T/S Team 8 electronic specialistrendered the alarm system inert, gave a nod and the lock breaker stepped up andstarted work.

While he drilled into the door by the main lock, the restof the UNOP Marines covered him. The non-surgical team members carried assaultrifles, armed with non-lethal electroshock rounds to take out unarmed civiliansbut also a selection of AP and hollow point magazines for local law enforcementand enthusiastic security guards if it came to it.

The locksmith put down his drill and turned to the TacSurgeon.

Five minutes, he whispered.

Surgical team, the Tac Surgeon said into his internalmic. Come on up.

There were only twelve hours and thirty-four minutesuntil wheels up on the orbital shuttle and UNOP were remarkably keen to get thetargets central nervous system onboard. So much so that they had offered abonus big enough to upgrade the Tac Surgeons already-booked Mars colony cabinto first class. Why they wanted this particular target so badly, he could notfathom.

The Tac Surgeon waited in the hall, half-heartedlyreviewing the targets file while he waited. He had broken into dozens of homesin the last couple of years to perform tactical surgery and he knew that somepeople invested in security to keep their family safe.

Yet the target, 28-year-old Rama Seti, had no family.None that counted, anyway. His parents lived on the other side of Delhi, henever saw them and had no other relatives. He had no children and thesurveillance notes said all his sexual partners in the previous decade had beenvisiting prostitutes. The target must have paid them well, or perhaps they werejust financially desperate enough to engage in intercourse with a man asmorbidly obese as Mr. Seti.

The UNOP Marines locksmith carried on with his work,inserting a self-guiding wire into the hollow part of the door up toward theinternal computer that controlled the time lock.

Previous targets had installed layers of high-techsecurity to protect their precious gold, jewelry, works of art or gemstonesthat they would not trust to bank vaults. But the valuable content of RamaSetis apartment was cutting-edge technology for online virtual realitycompetitive gaming.

The target was the founder and Chief Executive ofRubicon, a gaming cooperative with one-hundred members. The gaming system wasknown as the Avar and it was the ubiquitous online system the world over. Noneof the other Rubicon members was even based in India. Avar brought players theworld over together seamlessly to compete in virtual worlds. Spectators and fanswould join the players and watch in real time from the sidelines or even downamongst the players, unseen by them and each other and unable to affect theoutcome.

It all sounded incredibly tedious to the TacticalSurgeon. Spending your life playing make believe when humanitys very existencewas on the line.

These virtual reality people are disgusting, hemuttered.

Sir? The Marine next to him asked.

The Tac Surgeon did not bother to respond.

The targets most prized possession, the file said, was hiscustom Avar Chair. It cost more than the Surgeons annual salary back when he hadbeen a junior resident in Austin. The headset, gloves and shoes of the device wereengineered to the micrometer and the seat itself was designed to reduce therisk of bedsores. It aerated and cooled, massaged and moved so that blood flowwas unrestricted. Vital for the target as he was recorded as being in the chairanywhere from eight to eighteen hours every day.

Remarkable, the Surgeon muttered as he flicked throughhis screen. Goddamned waste.

Im through, the locksmith said. Ready to open.

Initiate entry, the Tac Surgeon said, yawning, and thelocksmith heaved open the door. It swung out into the hallway without a sound.

The team members held their breath. They had experiencedmore than one night when unplanned alarms sounded, ruining their carefully laidplans and earning the Tac Surgeon a mauling from his UNOP commissioners.

But not tonight. The Marines swept inside with theirweapons up, leaving one man to watch the hall and another to descend to coverthe lobby and their exfil. The elevator door chimed and the surgical team trundledtheir equipment after the Marines.

The target slept on in his bedroom, oblivious, snoringlike a broken air conditioning unit.

That is not a healthy sound, the Tac Surgeon said, tono one in particular.

In the main living area, almost empty other than the obscenelyexpensive Avar chair, his surgical team laid plastic sheeting on every surface.Walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in layers of clear plastic. More teammembers rolled the heavily reinforced and extra-large gurney into the targetsbedroom.

The Tac Surgeon had personally performed thirty-four corporectomiesand only the first half a dozen had been in a proper medical facility. And yet,even after so much experience in the field, performing the most complicatedtissue removal procedure in medical history inside an unsanitary apartment madehim deeply unhappy. It was sordid. Disrespectful to the medical profession. ButUNOP paid better than anyone and they didnt care about his past run-ins withuptight Research and Ethics Boards with morals stuck back in the 21stCentury.

He wandered after his anesthetists into the subjectsbedroom where the rumbling and snorting echoed from the walls. It smelled of sickly-sweetsweat and the kind of rank feculence particular to the morbidly obese.

The anesthetic dosages had been prepared well in advance.All his team had to do was inject the patient and heave the disgusting fat son ofa bitch onto the gurney, which was wheeled in next to the bed.

What are you idiots waiting for? he said in theinternal comms system. Get on with it.

Hes too fat, one replied, gesturing. Adipose tissueat the neck too thick for the needles to penetrate. We are changing them now.